


a family history

by flowermasters



Series: lady kylo ren (and her general) [16]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, But also, Cuddling, F/M, Feelings (hux is Bad at them), Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Morning Sickness, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Pregnancy, can't stop won't stop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 00:04:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7382953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowermasters/pseuds/flowermasters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hux,” Kylo says, poking him in the ribs. “You’re panicking.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	a family history

**Author's Note:**

> Happy long weekend, my fellow Americans. I hope you enjoy ... whatever this is.
> 
> Warnings for: cisgirl Kylo + everything stated in the tags, basically. Also, a reminder that Hux is a terrible person and his opinions about sensitive topics tend to reflect that, so if discussion of past suicide/abuse is a problem for you, please be aware going into this. Nothing is graphic, but Hux isn't that delicate about it.
> 
> If parts of this look familiar, I have referenced a lot of this before, but I can't seem to stop going backwards. C'est la vie.

It’s curious, Hux thinks, how quickly things return to normal after Snoke’s death.

Perhaps _normal_ isn’t the right word, though Hux doesn’t know what else to call it. He and Kylo simply go back to doing what they did in the weeks before she left. Hux drives them both half-mad looking for something to do, anything to make him feel productive and sane; Kylo performs various katas outside when the weather is tolerable, and meditates inside when it isn’t. When Hux dares to ask why she bothers, she gives him a filthy look and doesn’t speak to him for several hours. Trying to explain that it was an _honest question_ does not improve her mood.

They fuck, of course, but not quite as often as before – though that isn’t for lack of trying. Kylo’s condition often makes her exhausted and lightheaded for no particular reason, which frustrates her into a sullenness that Hux has trouble tolerating. There’s also a memorable occasion where, after dinner, she practically vaults out of Hux’s lap, making it to the fresher just in time to retch everywhere. She cleans up after herself out of pride and showers without further incident, but afterwards lets Hux hold her til she falls asleep, so he learns not to underestimate her true discomfort.

Tonight is a similar occasion; there’s been no vomiting yet, but that’s probably because she skipped dinner. Hux at least manages to convince her to drink some tea, although she finds the drink substantially less calming than he does (“It tastes medicinal,” she gripes, turning her nose up at it.) Afterwards, she lounges in bed, looking as inviting as she can manage, til he joins her.

“Don’t get any ideas,” Hux says, eyeing her warily as he settles beside her. “I have a vested interest in not being vomited on.”

“Give my aim _some_ credit,” Kylo says. When Hux scoffs, she glares at him.

“We can do whatever we please,” Hux says diplomatically, “as soon as you’re feeling up to it.”

“What if that’s not til after the baby comes?” Kylo challenges. “Before long I’m going to be swollen – well, _more_ swollen. I'll be like that for months. You wouldn’t deny me for that long.”

“No,” Hux agrees. He’s not entirely sure he could, let alone _would_. He’s always had frightfully little self-restraint when it comes to her. “But we’ll manage.”

“Fine,” Kylo mutters, sullen. Nevertheless, she scoots closer to him, resting her head on his shoulder. Hux can see a sheen of clammy sweat on her forehead, and resists the urge to put a few feet and a wastebin between them.

Even though they're close enough physically that he _knows_ Kylo has to be aware of what he’s thinking about, Hux can't help but dwell on what she'd spoken of: what will happen in the coming months, when the reality of their situation becomes steadily more apparent. They don’t speak about it often – or if they do, it’s usually about health matters – but Hux thinks about their situation several times a day, and even more often at night. It doesn’t help that he has nothing better to do, and that Kylo’s condition is already more noticeable than before.

Though it’s early yet, Kylo’s body has changed – and if Hux has noticed, then Kylo certainly has. She has a warrior’s build, muscular and strong, with very little softness about her. Her breasts, previously on the small side (but quite charming), are fuller and apparently very sore. Her stomach, once flat as a board, now pokes outward slightly – if Hux didn't already have considerable experience with Lady Ren’s lower half, he might not even notice. But even now, the material of her shirt is thin enough that he can see the little rise that announces their child’s presence. He’d be lying if he said that the sight didn’t affect him; something about it does trigger a pulse of bizarre fondness, though he isn’t sure whether it’s for Kylo or the child or both. There is also a brief but powerful surge of anxiety, altogether easier to understand. Kylo’s belly is proof that one day – not exactly soon, but on a date slowly approaching – he’ll be presented with this child in the flesh, and he’ll be expected to give it things he isn’t sure he’s even capable of. The essentials – food, clothing, a roof over his or her head – will be manageable, given that he and Kylo are currently subsisting well enough off of thievery and luck. But children eventually demand other, less tangible things, things which have never been required of Hux before.

“Hux,” Kylo says, poking him in the ribs. “You’re panicking.”

“I am _not_ ,” he snaps, swatting her hand away. “I’m thinking. I keep telling you, you really ought to try it sometime.”

“You’re _thinking_ about how afraid you are,” Kylo says, sitting up slightly to look him in the face. “Would it help if I said I was afraid, too?”

“No,” Hux says flatly.

Kylo frowns, aggravated, but instead of speaking, she studies him for a moment. When Hux refuses to meet her eyes, she sighs audibly. “When will you learn there’s no point in pretending around me?”

 _Probably never_ , Hux thinks. But it doesn’t matter. He isn’t pretending because he isn’t afraid. They’re both adults. They are too old to behave like scared children, grappling with the consequences of their actions. They’ve both done things no one’s ever dreamed of, committed acts which have changed the course of history. They’ve each left behind the only institutions they’ve ever known, in favor of a life that – for once – is defined only by themselves, for better or for worse. Hux is not _afraid_.

“I see it all,” Kylo reminds him quietly. She still looks annoyed, as well as a bit sickly, but she is forcing herself to be gentle with him. Half of Hux _loathes_ it, while the other half feels strangely in need of gentleness. “Even in your dreams, you worry.”

Hux’s urge to argue is temporarily waylaid by surprise. “You watch my dreams?” he asks, tilting his head back slightly to look at her directly. It makes sense that she _can_ , but – _why?_

“Sometimes,” she says, unembarrassed. “Usually just the sex ones, though.”

Hux rolls his eyes at that. There haven’t been many of _those_ lately; his sex drive is satisfied regularly enough that it can’t possibly contend with other, louder parts of his subconscious. No, lately his dreams have been altogether rather unpleasant. The nightmares (memories?) of choking on his own blood or being trapped in a medical pod and unable to get out have decreased in frequency, only to be replaced by the confusing and disconcerting dreams of late.

Hux usually can’t remember the finer points of his dreams, even the bad ones, but certain parts stick out. There was one dream where he wandered through the empty corridors of the _Finalizer_ , following the anxious wails of an infant – mostly because that’s what one does in such a dream. That one was memorable mainly because of how ridiculously cliché it was.

He never found the child. Or anyone else, for that matter.

The dreams involving his father are more numerous and, frankly, par for the course. They flare up any time he’s particularly concerned about something. (He’d had similar dreams every night in the weeks before Starkiller’s official completion, and then for several months following her destruction.) It’s always the same script, just with set changes. Sometimes he’s in the study at the house on Arkanis and other times he’s at the Academy, walking into the commandant’s office. His father turns from the rain-splattered window or rises from his desk, each time looming higher than he actually could given Hux’s own height, glowering with fury and disappointment. Hux always wakes as though he’s been startled out of his sleep by a thunderclap, or a sudden blow.

Naturally, this train of thought is the one Kylo chooses to fixate on. “Your father,” she says darkly. “He beat you.”

Hux blinks at her several times in rapid succession, startled. It’s no big secret, except that it is. He’s never thought to keep it from Kylo – truthfully, he doesn’t think of it much at all – but he also didn’t know that she knew. He's never mentioned it aloud, to her or to anyone else. “He – well, yes,” Hux says. “Sometimes.”

Kylo maintains eye contact, although Hux wishes she wouldn’t. He wonders whether kissing her might distract her; it usually does. He’d have done that in the first place if he’d known this was going to turn into some kind of impromptu psychoanalysis session. All they need now is a bloody couch and a datapad for note-taking. “Are you worried you’ll be like him?” Kylo asks, before Hux can do anything to avoid it.

“No,” Hux says. It tumbles out before he can stop it – and really, he should stop indulging Kylo like this – but it’s the truth. Or at least he thinks it is. He’s never interpreted those dreams like that before; they’ve always represented anxiety, strain under pressure, weakness. Besides, his situation now is nothing like his father’s, and therefore any subconscious comparison is moot. It seems silly to worry about repeating his father’s actions when the mere idea of his only son running off and making some strange, New Republic-bred mystic his – what? lover? wife, in everything but name? – would’ve been enough to give the elder Brendol Hux a coronary. The dreams are probably more indicative of that than anything else, except perhaps for Hux’s overwhelming desire not to fuck up the only thing he has left.

“What about your mother?” Kylo asks, and if Hux thought the last question came out of nowhere, this one is from an entirely different star system.

“What about her?” Hux says, blinking.

Kylo huffs. “What became of her?” she prompts impatiently. “You don’t think about her.”

“She’s been dead a very long time,” Hux says defensively. For over three decades, to be more specific, and nearly the entirety of his life. “I don’t have anything to think about.”

Well, that isn’t entirely true. He does know _some_ things about her, of course. Basic things, like her name (Cecilia) and her approximate age at her untimely death (twenty-four.) When he was young he spent a quite a bit of time wondering about her. Once he reached a certain age, he stopped. It had hardly seemed relevant after a while: an infantile curiosity, nothing more.

Something about Kylo’s expression tells him that she won’t be satisfied by this explanation. She’s gotten that look of focus she gets when she’s grown particularly attached to a subject and isn’t inclined to drop it. Hux supposes talking about it is easier than having her analyze his thoughts, looking for scraps of information, so he thinks for a moment before settling on a place to begin. It really isn’t that hard, given that he doesn’t have much to go on in the first place.

“She was – pretty, I suppose,” Hux says. “I look a bit like her. Except for the hair, of course.” There had been pictures of her here and there in his childhood home; he’d studied them as a child, and he can still remember them fairly well now. He’d wished vainly for holo footage, childishly hopeful for anything that might indicate some semblance of her personality or even just the sound of her voice, but if any existed, he never discovered it. He even asked the nanny droid about her, but that droid was purchased after his mother’s death – no doubt just after his father realized Hux couldn’t feed himself yet – and therefore knew nothing about her. The droid was programmed to be kind, though; she suggested that Hux ask his father, and then cooed at him soothingly when he cried over the impossibility of such a task.

Of course, he did eventually find an opportunity to ask, but only the once, only after the droid who mothered him had been suddenly, unceremoniously sold. Kylo must know this, because she asks, “How did she die?”

 _Don’t you know?_ _Haven’t you already figured it out?_ Hux almost asks, but doesn’t. "My father told me it was poison," he answers bluntly. "We didn't talk about it much, but I suspect it was by her own hand." He shifts then and draws the blanket over both of them. It’s much too early to sleep, but he’s ready to be through with these probing questions about his childhood, something Kylo has never expressed much interest in before. It’s unsettling, and aggravating, and _strange_.

Kylo nestles closer, still watching him, waiting. Hux isn’t quite sure what comes over him, what makes him think it, only that it can’t be left entirely unsaid.

_It wasn't much of a surprise when I figured it out. I can't say I blame her._

He had at the time, of course, as well as for most of his youth. How _dare_ she be so weak as to abandon him. But upon considering it now, with the benefit of hindsight, Hux finds he simply does not have it in him to harbor any particular sentiment towards his mother, not even resentment. He can only remember the minutes before he died in fragments, but he will never forget the agony. He would've begged for an end to it had he been able to speak. Her suffering must have been very great, and much more protracted than his own.

Kylo rests her head on his shoulder again. When no further questions are forthcoming, Hux says, “And you?”

“Mm?”

“These _burning_ questions about my parents must have come from somewhere,” Hux says dryly. “Have you been thinking about yours?”

Turnabout is fair play, but it’s still a risky question; Kylo isn’t as secretive about her family as she once was, but Hux would rather err on the side of caution. In a preemptive apology, he kisses her hair very lightly, letting his lips linger at the top of her head for a moment.

“Sometimes,” Kylo says finally, heavily. It's difficult to see her face from this angle, but Hux can tell that her eyes are open, perhaps staring at something he can't see. “They never struck me and my needs were met. But they made mistakes. Ones I won’t repeat.”

The tone of her voice makes her words oddly formal, almost like a vow. Hux decides not to press his luck with another question, and instead offers, “Don't get worked up. I believe you.”

“I'm not getting _worked up_ ,” Kylo mutters, annoyed, but she seems to be telling the truth.

Hux is surprisingly loath to ask her to move, but his arm has long since fallen asleep, pinned between their bodies as it is. Without needing to be told, Kylo shifts away, allowing Hux to stretch his arm and work the pins and needles out of it. Kylo rolls onto her back, lost in thought as she gazes aimlessly at the ceiling.

“How are you feeling?” Hux asks, wondering if this sudden quiet is some kind of signal, the calm before the storm (the storm being, in this case, another bout of morning sickness – a misleading name, Hux has come to learn.)

“Better,” Kylo says absently. She’s less sweaty, at least, although still pallid. It's for her sake, of course, that Hux shifts onto his side to face her and drapes an arm over her middle; she still looks quite miserable, lying there by herself.

Kylo perks up a bit at the renewed contact, tilting her head up to kiss him; Hux allows it, although he's admittedly a bit confused as to why Kylo makes no attempt to deepen it. Instead, she grabs at his wrist, and tugs him by the sleeve until his hand rests on her abdomen. There's not much to touch, so it takes Hux a moment to realize what she's doing: putting his hand over their child.

Hux hasn't done this before, mostly because there's really no point at this stage. There's nothing to feel with the baby still so small. But maybe the potential in it is point enough; there's something _there_ , growing, developing. For the first time, Hux feels a bit of real – _curiosity_ , perhaps, or even excitement, alongside the burst of anxiety from before. He's really going to see this through.

When Kylo breaks the kiss, she's smiling, although she quickly gets it under control. Hux is grateful for it; he already feels on display like this, with Kylo close enough to see every minute change in his expression and hear every errant thought. He doesn't move his hand, though, which seems to please her.

Silence falls, broken only by the occasional kiss; it’s lazy, easy, and Hux has just parted his lips, a casual invitation for Lady Ren’s tongue, when she eases away. “Hux.”

Hux closes his mouth, refusing to feel foolish. “What?” he says, frowning down at her.

“I'm hungry.”

Hux stares at her for a few seconds, nonplused. That's an improvement over nauseous, naturally, but he's not sure why it requires an announcement. “That's nice,” he says.

Kylo looks at him thoughtfully. “I wonder if we could find some chocolate in the village.”

Hux rolls his eyes. “Is this some kind of craving?”

“Not this time,” Kylo says, mouth twitching like she wants to smile. “I'd settle for anything.”

Hux fixes her with a glare, finally catching on to what she's after. “Go and fix what you want, then,” he says. “You're not a bloody invalid.”

Kylo growls under her breath but doesn't move, clearly debating between a desire to stay in the warmth of their bed or go to the kitchen for food. Hux refuses to feel any sympathy for her; he's fairly certain that in the coming months he’ll have to do his fair share of fetching for her, and he isn't about to start now, when she's merely feeling lazy. Under normal circumstances Kylo loathes being babied, so Hux somewhat suspects she’s only fucking with him at the moment, anyway.

Kylo seems disinclined to get up for the time being, instead wiggling closer to Hux. Hux has just given her stomach what he hopes is a soothing rub when it growls, quite loudly.

“ _Hux_.”

“Alright, fine. I’m _going_ , Kylo, Sith hells.”


End file.
